Chapter 48

Cassidy was looking forward to going home. She’d tried to talk David into letting her co-pilot the jet so she could log hours toward her next certification. But it wasn’t his jet, and the sheikh’s pilot objected to having a female in the cockpit.

She wanted to finish her certification because David had his. In fact, he’d decided to change to a different path now that he had his jet certification. He wanted to get a helicopter private pilot certification.

He could store or rent a helicopter at a heliport about thirty minutes from campus. Cassidy found it amusing that the drive to and from the heliports was roughly the same as driving to Malibu when there was no traffic. But as David rightly pointed out, when was there no traffic in LA?

She took it for what it really was: a boy with too much money wanting another toy to play with. Of course, she would make sure he didn’t leave her out. Cassidy loved flying and figured having a helicopter rating would be one more thing to cross off her bucket list.

“Ruth!” Cassidy called when she spotted David’s security for Dubai.

Ruth had lived with them for most of the summer and had won the trip. When almost everyone at the security agency had volunteered to accompany David to Dubai, Fritz had set up an informal contest to decide who would go. The competition involved everything from hand-to-hand combat to firing a sniper rifle.

Winning was no small feat when considering who she’d had to go up against. All of Fritz’s people had either police or military backgrounds. Cassidy wished she’d been able to see the competition; it would have been amazing to watch a girl who weighed 110 pounds beat hardened special ops men twice her size. Cassidy had tried to get David’s big Samoan security guy, Manaia, to give her details, but he would only shake his head, as if he didn’t want to relive the nightmare.

“Ma’am.”

“David is never going to put up with you calling him ‘sir.’”

“Sorry. It’s a hard habit to break.”

Cassidy looked around to ensure no ‘little ears’ were near before asking, “Do you plan to finally let him know you’re interested?”

It was amusing to see badass Ruth blush. Since Cassidy had learned Ruth liked David, she’d enjoyed teasing the poor girl.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, right. Think about it. You’ll have him all alone for a full week. If you’re interested, I can give you a foolproof plan to get him in the sack,” Cassidy offered.

When Ruth didn’t object, Cassidy leaned close and whispered, “The first night, you slip into his room in the morning. David sleeps naked and always has morning wood. Wake him up by giving him head. He’s enough of a boy to let nature take its course, and at the very least, you can talk him into reciprocating. Believe me when I say having him go down on you is a treat.”

Ruth gasped in horror.

“I’ll get fired!”

“Pfft! Boy Wonder won’t tell. But if I were you, I’d kill the security cameras in the bedroom first. Fritz might guess what’s going on, but he won’t have any proof,” Cassidy said confidently.

“You’ve done it?”

Cassidy shrugged. She hadn’t personally, but she knew Brook had woken him that way, and he hadn’t complained. David had said he wouldn’t turn down even a lousy blow job. Cassidy, on the other hand, didn’t enjoy second-rate head. If the guy had no idea what he was doing, it was a complete waste of time and, frankly, could be gross. But, then again, you stroke a guy enough, and he’ll cum 100% of the time. God, men were lucky.

Ruth pondered what Cassidy had said before visibly shaking herself.

“Just think about it,” Cassidy said to stir the pot.

She had no doubt Ruth would think about little else on their flight to Dubai.

Tracy made it a point to sit next to David on the flight to Illinois. She wanted to get his take on some recent hirings Bo Harrington had made for the football team. She waited until they were in the air before she went into reporter mode.

“Mind if I record our conversation?” Tracy asked to clue him in on what she was up to.

“Only if you aim and focus the cameras to just show our faces. I don’t want the viewers to see we’re on a private jet; that would send the wrong message. And do you have throat mics? Regular microphones are going to capture the jet noise, and we don’t want that, obviously,” David said.

“We can do that.”

“Even so, we’ll probably pick up some of the jet noise and other extraneous sounds. When you get back to school, talk to Professor Blum about getting access to the audio lab. I hear they have some new software that’s just incredible. You can make a recording in the middle of a construction zone, and the software will make it sound like it was done in a quiet room,” David said, geeking out.

“Okay, I’ll do that,” Tracy said. “Shall we proceed?”

The sheikh’s airplane had been designed for luxury, with sizeable first-class seats for every passenger. They were seated facing each other with a table in between. Tracy placed the cameras to show both their faces for the podcast.

“Mr. Dawson.”

“Ms. Dole.”

“We haven’t done one of these in a while. I thought I would get your feelings about the coaching changes announced today,” Tracy said.

First, David hated to talk about his ‘feelings.’ Second, she knew the coaching hires hadn’t been announced yet, so she wasn’t surprised by David’s clueless look.

“You might want to fill me in because I’ve been out of the loop,” David admitted.

“USC named Mark Trent as offensive coordinator and Tucker Allen as quarterback coach.”

David looked shocked but pleased.

“Oh, wow. I worked with both of those guys when I was at Elite 11. Coach Trent ran the event, and Coach Allen was my personal coach. Both of them have fantastic minds and know how to teach the game of football. Coach Harrington did a great job when he got those two.”

“What can you tell me about Coach Trent?”

“He taught me a lot of life lessons that I apply to football and everything else. One of them was that, at some point, you will fail. They had us run a gauntlet of exercises designed to make our bodies give out. What Coach Trent wanted to see was how we handled it. Did we fight through, or did we give up?” David said.

“Did you give up?” Tracy asked.

David laughed.

“I probably should have. Coach Trent was all about having us focus on our personal development. We all knew Elite 11 was a competition to see who the best quarterback was. He pointed out that we were getting world-class coaching and should focus on improving ourselves. To get the most out of the experience, we had to block out what others did,” David said.

“Did that work?”

David rolled his eyes.

“What do you think? The coaches all got together each night and ranked us. You put together a bunch of competitive guys, and someone will rise to the top.”

“And that someone was you?”

“Heck, yes. Would you expect anything less?”

David had actually been co-MVP, but Tracy didn’t bring that up.

She shook her head and said, “Not from you. Now tell me about Coach Allen.”

“I had three personal quarterback coaches when I was in high school. Coach Harrington taught me how to be a quarterback and Coach Mason showed me how to prepare for a game. Coach Allen taught me to trust the system. At Elite 11, some plays were designed to make the read progression uncomfortable. They did that to show us that we had to get out of our heads and follow their read order, no matter what we thought it should be,” David said.

“Were they right?”

“The reads felt herky-jerky, and some of the guys fought it, but we soon learned that if we did them correctly, we had success. Moving our eyes allowed receivers to come open that wouldn’t have if the defense had watched where we looked. It created some big plays.”

“So, bottom-line it for me and the USC fans. Did Coach Harrington get it right with these hires?” Tracy asked.

“Without a doubt. Both coaches will make us better.”

Tracy waited a moment, then leaned over and turned off the video.

“What do you really think?”

“Exactly what I said. We will have a quarterback-friendly offense between Coaches Harrington, Trent, and Allen. And Coach Harrington has hired Bud Mason as a special advisor. I can’t wait to see what those four come up with,” David said.

After talking to Tracy, David jumped onto one of the USC fan pages to see how everyone was taking the news of Bo Harrington’s first hires.

Someone attached a video of an interview Bo had given the day before.

“I’ll make an opening statement, then open it up for questions,” Bo began.

David noted that the interview had been held in the John McKay Center in front of the Stevens Academic Center.

“Coach Thomas continues to handle the team’s day-to-day training as they prepare for their bowl game. While he handles that, I’ve been busy building our staff...”

Coach Harrington listed the people Tracy had shared with David and said he was continuing to interview to fill the remaining spots. He also said he didn’t plan to look at the film of the current year’s team. Coach Harrington wanted to make roster decisions based on what he saw in strength and conditioning training and then spring ball.

Then the questions began.

“Do you plan to have a two-quarterback system such as was used this year?” Chip Wagner—reporter for Channel 10 Sports—asked.

“I’m not a big proponent of that system. I think we want a clear number one at quarterback.”

“David Dawson started the year strong against UNLV and finished strong with his win over Notre Dame. Does that put him in the driver’s seat going into spring ball?” Chip asked.

“Nice try, but we plan to have competition at each position, and the best player will be named the starter.”

“But you also have a history with David. What do you think of him as a quarterback?”

“I was hired to be his quarterback coach when he was a freshman in high school, and I continued that role for a couple of summers to help him develop. David is an exceptional talent and a proven winner. But I won’t sell Matt Long short because he is also an exceptional talent. He, too, was one of the top quarterbacks in his class. Barring some injury, heaven forbid, both of these young men should make it to the NFL,” Coach Harrington said.

“Do you think David’s being disloyal to his team by not participating in bowl practice?” Chip asked.

“David’s in a unique situation. He has commitments outside of football, ones he made prior to attending USC, that makes him a lot of money. I would never prevent him from supporting his family, and his absence has been pre-approved by the NCAA, the Pac-12, and the university. Everyone knew he’d be doing this from the beginning, so no, I don’t consider him disloyal.”

The interview lasted a few more minutes as Bo danced around who he planned to start at different positions.

Bo revealed that he’d made a hard push for the recruits who’d signed in the fall to enroll early.

There were a couple of wide receivers, including Ezekiel ‘EZ’ Rodriguez, a six-seven player out of Westmont, and Aidan Voss, a six-five, 210-pound kid who had been Colt Macklin’s primary target during the fall. At running back was Ashton Brown from Beverly Hills High. The six-foot, 200-pounder was rated one of the top five in the country.

Then, the two that made David the happiest to have on campus: his brother Phil at quarterback, and Bear’s younger brother, Steve ‘Cub’ Barber, an offensive lineman.

Three older players would be joining the team. Damion Roth, whom David had known from his Elite 11 days, was a freak of an athlete who would play wide receiver. David had no doubt that Damion would someday play on Sundays after he left USC. He was six-six and had just graduated from Iowa Western CC.